


You can't bury the sun

by Sororising



Series: What's in a name? [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky can't stop thinking about Steve's eyelashes, CA:TFA, Established Relationship, Howling Commandos - Freeform, M/M, New Yorkers being rude about New Jersey, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Period-Typical Sexism, Religion, Slurs, Swearing, mention of suicidal thoughts, mentions of torture, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-08 02:22:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7739776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sororising/pseuds/Sororising
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm sorry," Bucky says, and he knows he sounds more than a little desperate. “I just - they asked me if I had a girl back home, and it felt like a lie to say yes and a lie to say no, and - I thought I was going to die in there, so it wouldn’t matter.”</p><p>Steve looks at him then, finally, with an odd expression. Bucky isn’t sure if it’s just that he’s never seen that look before, or if Steve’s new face makes it hard to read.</p><p>“I’m not mad at you, Buck,” Steve says, and oh, Bucky hadn’t even thought to hope that Steve might not be angry at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Have had this idea stuck in my head for a while!
> 
> A note on all the 'period-typical' warnings: the content that relates to them isn't too extreme but may still be upsetting.
> 
> Title comes from this Elvis Presley quote: "Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a while, but it ain't going away."

* * *

Bucky gets jolted out of his thoughts by someone calling his name. He isn’t bothered by the interruption; he’d only been staring at the weighty-looking padlock holding them captive for about the hundredth time that day, and he still hadn’t thought of anything more productive than _maybe it’s rusty?_

“Hey, there you are. You got a girl back home, Barnes?”

It’s an obvious question for Dugan to ask. He’s been rambling on about some dame who deserves better than him but who puts up with him anyway for what feels like the best part of an hour. About time he let someone else get a word in edgeways.

‘Course, Bucky would rather he’d asked literally anyone else.

The denial is on his lips, about to leave them, when something Steve had said once flashes through his mind.

_”Some days I’m almost glad we have to hide this.”_

Bucky still remembers the confusion that had come over him on hearing that. 

_“What the hell?”_

_“If it wasn’t a sin, y’know, if they changed the laws and we could love whoever we wanted...well, you could pick anyone then. You wouldn’t have to be stuck with me.”_

Honestly. 

_“Steve, you idiot. If I could, I’d shout it from the fucking rooftops that I’m lucky enough to have you. I’m not ashamed of you, okay? Never, ever think that.”_

Dugan’s still waiting for an answer, and Bucky would bet that every man in earshot is as well. Not like they get a whole lot of entertainment in here, and for some reason Fritz haven’t been nice enough to throw a pack of cards through the bars.

It couldn’t do any harm, could it? None of these guys are ever going to meet Steve.

But he still isn’t sure what he’s going to say until the words are already in the air, and by then it’s too late to take them back.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

He pictures Steve’s face, tilted up at the perfect angle for a kiss, eyes half closed so that those absurdly long eyelashes are sweeping over his cheeks - 

“Look at that dumb smile on Sarge’s mug!” 

Oh good, Falsworth’s paying attention now. That’s never anything but a recipe for disaster, if by _disaster_ you mean shedloads of embarrassment and endless taunts for the next week.

“What’s her name?”

He’d ignore the question, except it was Gabe who asked, and Bucky likes Gabe. Plus, he’d bet it took some courage for the guy to speak up at all.

You’d think that if folks were going to look past their differences it would be when they were locked together in a cage, waiting on some uber-Nazi bastards to have their twisted version of fun with them.

Apparently not everyone shares that opinion, though, because Bucky’s seen men shy away before Gabe’s arm can brush their bare skin. Everyone in here’s coated in dirt and fuck knows what else, but apparently touching a coloured guy is too much to ask of them.

“Stevie,” he says, unable to believe how daring he’s being. Quickly, before any of them can ask, he adds: “Short for Stephanie.”

Steve would kill him for this, he knows that. It’s hardly unusual for someone to try and insult Steve by calling him a girl. Bucky has to admit that Steve’s an easy target for it, hell, he’s smaller than most girls are, and he is kind of pretty - not that Bucky’s ever said that out loud, he tries to know when to pick his battles.

“Stephanie. Kind of a fancy name,” Dugan says, and Bucky laughs at that idea.

“Aw, she’s no blueblood,” he says. “Brooklyn Irish, and she’s a little spitfire. Been in more fights than me, I can tell you that for sure.”

“You like ‘em feisty, eh, Barnes?”

“Fuck off, Falsworth. Just ‘cause the only action you got at that stuffed-up boarding school was with your right hand doesn’t mean we’re all prudes."

“Oh, I could tell you some stories about my schooldays that would make you eat your words with a fine topping of our English custard,” Monty says with a quick wink, and - does that mean what Bucky thinks it might?

He doesn’t let himself look too closely at Monty; he might somehow give something away about his own - predilections.

It’s easy to spot one of your own, people say.

“Tell us more about her,” Gabe says, and, well, if there’s one thing Bucky knows how to do it’s talk about Steve.

“She’s an artist,” he says, because for some reason it’s the first thing that comes to mind. “Good one, too, but she gets real shy when you tell her that. She could go places, maybe, if someone just helped her out a bit.”

“What does she looks like?”

Bucky rolls his eyes, because of course Dugan wants to know that. He’s probably picturing some busty bombshell, with legs for days and a heavily made-up face. Wait, no, it's Dugan. He probably wouldn't bother with picturing her face.

“Small,” he says, then frowns, because while it’s technically true it somehow conveys an image he doesn’t think is quite right. “But she’s got enough heart to make up for that. Um, blond, blue eyes.”

“How positively Aryan,” Monty says, and Bucky punches his arm just hard enough to hurt.

“Nice tits?” 

Bucky punches Dugan in the gut for that one, which is the least he deserves.

He has to choke back a very inappropriate laugh, though, when he pictures the lean - too lean, in winter - planes of Steve’s chest, his nipples rising up slightly but everything else flat as a board.

“She sounds lovely,” Gabe says, and his voice sounds more than a little wistful.

“She’s something,” Bucky agrees. “More’n I deserve, that’s for sure.”

He realises that no-one’s asked Gabe if he’s got anyone waiting for him back home. Steve would have asked, wouldn’t even have thought not to.

Well, thank the lord and every saint in heaven, Stevie ain’t here. So Bucky figures he might as well step up to the plate. “How about you, Jones?”

Gabe looks both startled and grateful at the question, which makes something twist inside Bucky’s gut. 

“Alice. My Alice. She’s - I wish I had a picture, words don’t do her justice.”

Bucky is glad Gabe doesn’t have a picture on him. Alice is most likely coloured, anything else’d be suicide on both their parts, and he’d rather not hear any of Dugan’s comments about black women right now.

More to the point, he wouldn’t want Gabe to hear them.

“Lucky you,” he says, not sure what else to ask.

Monty clears his throat. “Can she cook?”

“Why is everything about food with you English?” Gabe laughs, softly, and Bucky glances over at Monty, but it doesn’t look like he’s taken offence. “And yes, she’s a wonderful cook,” Gabe continues, with a smile in the corners of his eyes. “I have dreams about her ratatouille ever since I came to this war.”

“Stevie burnt the potatoes for our last meal together,” Bucky says ruefully, wanting to say something before anyone can try and make a cheap innuendo out of _ratatouille._ It'd be a stretch, but that's never stopped a soldier before from what he's seen and heard. 

“You two live together?” Dugan asks, and oh, of course, if he had a girl cooking for him in an apartment and they weren’t living together it would be a minor scandal.

Course, so would living together when they weren’t married, so Bucky doesn’t know how he’s going to get out of this one.

Shit.

He never thought he’d be glad to see one of their guards approaching, but there’s a first time for everything. 

It’s him that’s picked this time, for whatever secret torture chamber they’ve got hidden away, and he can’t find it in him to be anything but resigned. He knows he’s been riling up their captors, trying to keep their attention away from the youngest members of their sorry little band.

He’s surprised they didn’t come for him sooner, really.

“Hey, Barnes!”

He’s startled enough to look back at the cage, and he sees Monty saluting him, with Dugan and Gabe standing on either side.

“Think of Stevie, hey?” Gabe says quietly, and Bucky swallows down his fear and has time to give them one quick grin in reply, before his head is forced round to face the way he’s being marched.

He has no idea what they’re injecting him with, and the questions they’re asking him don’t make any sense. Instead of trying to get information on the Allies’ resources or plans, they ask him about himself: _how strong are you, soldier,_ or _did you get sick often as a child?_

If he hadn’t had Steve on his mind already, that question would have done it. He isn’t sure he wants to follow Gabe’s last request, he feels like even picturing Steve in his head when he’s in this godforsaken place might be some kind of sacrilege, like he’s poisoning a pure well with his thoughts, but it isn’t like he has much control anyway once whatever was in the injections starts racing through his veins.

He fixes Steve’s face in his mind, recites his numbers, and waits for the pain to either stop or for him to pass out.

When they unstrap him and drag him back to the cage, he doesn’t understand what’s happening. They’ve not seen a single man return that was taken off by the guards for special treatment, and here he is being thrown back in lock-up after only a few hours.

What the hell did they do to him?

“Hey, hey, sarge, it’s alright.”

“Monty?” Bucky’s voice is hoarse, but he manages to get the word out.

He hears one of the guards bark something out in German, then the familiar click of the iron padlock sounds behind him.

“Bet you missed me, boys,” he says - or hopes he does, his tongue feels oddly heavy in his mouth - from his position on the floor. He wants to get up, but his limbs don’t seem to be co-operating with his brain right now.

He hears someone from the next cell over calling out in French, and he’s picked up a phrase here and there - usually not polite ones, he’ll admit - but he can’t make out a word of it.

“That was Jacques Dernier,” Gabe says, sounding like he’s trying very hard to keep his voice calm. “He speaks German as well as French, just no English. He heard what the guard said.”

Bucky groans, and manages to move himself into a very undignified sitting position, slumped with his back against the wall. Someone sits next to him, and Bucky gratefully props himself up against what turns out to be Dugan.

“Don’t keep us in suspense here, Jones,” Monty says sharply. “What did bloody Fritz want this time?”

“Seems like they already got what they wanted,” Gabe says. “The guard was saying that - that Barnes was the first person to survive the procedure.”

The cage falls silent at that. 

Bucky hadn’t known the few guys that had already been dragged off personally, but there was a bond that formed between soldiers that lingered even if you hated each other’s guts. He tries to picture them being led off, but he can’t remember even one face. 

He knows they had died in agony, though, and that feels like it’s enough knowledge right now for a lifetime.

“What the hell is the procedure?” Dugan asks, sounding pissed off. 

Gabe calls out something in French to the other cage, but instead of an instant reply Bucky can hear mutterings coming over in both French and English, with one sharp word that doesn’t sound like any language he knows.

Bucky focuses on breathing, vaguely wondering if this was what Steve had felt like after every asthma attack.

He really, really hopes not.

“Ah, there’s a soldier in the next cell,” Gabe says, and Bucky doesn’t understand why he sounds so hesitant. “Morita,” is Gabe’s next word, and, okay, now he gets it.

“You can’t trust a word that Jap says,” Dugan immediately replies, clearly not seeing any irony in the fact that he’s addressing that advice to Gabe.

“Belt up, Dum-Dum,” Bucky says. “I want to hear what this guy knows.”

“Me too,” Monty adds unexpectedly.

“His first name is James,” Gabe adds, as though that will make them trust this Morita fellow more. Which it might, to be honest, but Bucky doesn’t have the energy for thinking about anything except what the thing like still feels like liquid fire in his veins is.

“He says that he’s heard rumours about experiments. Trying to create some kind of - superhuman soldier, one that can heal instantly and that doesn’t feel pain.”

If they were trying to get Bucky to stop feeling pain, they’ve done a shit job of it. He ignores the rest of Gabe’s words, not wanting to think them through to any kind of conclusion.

“Wait,” Gabe says, listening to a stream of rapid French. “The experiments Morita heard about were by the Americans. Project Renaissance, or something. I don’t know exactly how to translate it. He thinks the Germans are trying to copy that.”

There’s a moment of silence where Bucky wonders if anyone’s going to protest that the Americans are the good guys, that they would never fund anything like that. 

No-one speaks up.

Clearly they’ve all been just as desensitised as he has to the fact that every side is the wrong side from someone’s point of view.

“Well, shit,” Dugan says, clearly not that bothered anymore that the intel came from a Jap. “Think you got superpowers now, Barnes?”

Bucky tries to laugh, but it makes his whole chest hurt. He feels like he’s been run over by a tank and scraped back up again. He definitely doesn’t feel any stronger, or like he’s healing any faster than usual.

He still feels like hell, actually, so he isn’t sure he’s healing at all.

“This is pointless,” Monty says. “We can’t know exactly what they’ve done. We just have to hope they don’t take him again.”

Bucky winces at that thought. He isn’t even going to bother with hoping that they’ll leave him alone. He has no idea why he’s still alive, and it sounds like the Germans weren’t too sure either, which he’d bet his last cigarette ration means he’s due for more experiments and pointless questioning as soon as the sun's up.

Probably everyone else knows that too, he realises after a moment, and Monty was just trying to distract them.

“Tell us some more about your girl, Bucky,” Gabe says, and it takes Bucky a long, long moment before that sentence makes sense to him.

He’s always either Sarge or Barnes to the other men, or else some unflattering nickname that he pretends annoys him.

And his girl?

Shit. _Stevie._ What had he been thinking?

Still, he feels like the pain is finally starting to fade just the slightest bit, and it might be coincidence that he’s thinking about Steve as it does but it probably isn’t.

“Story time, alright then,” he says to buy himself a second more to think, trying to come up with something that won’t give the game away. “I could tell you about the time she hid under a nun’s habit? Or, oh, she once stopped a guy five times her size from beating up on a dog.”

“The nun one,” is the overwhelming and predictable response. Some of these men have been starved for female contact for months, and Bucky’s pretty sure that every Catholic schoolboy has had a sinful fantasy or two about what lies up the skirts of some of the younger nuns.

“Alright,” he says, and risks cracking a smile. Nothing screams in agony, so he figures he’s safe for now. 

They eat up that story, just like he’d known they would, and Bucky launches straight into the dog one with hearty encouragement from every man there. He manages to make it funny, somehow, though at the time he’d thought his heart had been about to stop when he’d run up to the alley entrance and seen Steve facing down a six-foot thug with a baseball bat swinging from one fist.

He thinks he can hear Gabe translating over to Dernier, and he wishes he could somehow tell Steve that their ordinary little life back in Brooklyn is being appreciated in two languages.

He never can, of course. Even if, against all odds, he makes it out of here alive, he can’t ever tell Steve about any of this.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which, as we all knew was going to happen, Bucky's plan goes very wrong.

* * *

“I thought you were smaller,” Bucky says, his mind gone completely blank.

“Oh, _fuck,"_ he says in the next breath, ignoring Steve’s stammering explanations.

Keeping his lie from Steve would have worked just fucking fine if Steve hadn’t decided to track down an enlistment officer with a screw loose and then get himself signed on for some crazy fucking science experiment.

“Don’t tell anyone your name,” he manages to choke out as they’re escaping the burning wreckage of the compound.

“Um, what? Why?”

Perfectly reasonable question.

“Just don’t,” Bucky says, knowing that it won’t fly for long but that Steve will take pity on him for the moment.

He can find a way out of this, no problem. He just has to get to a point where his brain doesn’t feel like it’s been scrambled and put back in his head wrong, and then he’ll figure out a plan that doesn’t involve anyone being arrested.

On the long march back they’re reunited with the men who Bucky feels like he knows better than kids he spent years with in Brooklyn. Steve hangs back, still very obviously confused.

“Holy shit,” Monty says. “Holy fucking shit. How did we get out of there?”

“I guess the experiments were good for something,” says a man who Bucky’s only just noticed. He knows from one glance that it’s Morita, and he gives him a hopefully friendly nod.

Steve looks like he’s taking the presence of both Morita and Gabe in stride, bless him. He’s half charmed the pants off Monty within a quarter hour, and even Dugan doesn’t look too suspicious, which is saying something.

This is not going to end well.

They make it back to base with only a few pauses along the way. Bucky’s head is spinning the whole time. He can’t take in that Steve is _here_ , Jesus, in the one place Bucky wanted him to stay away from - except every single fact that he’d tried to drill into Steve’s thick head as reasons to stay as far away as possible has just been made invalid, because Steve looks like he could punch out a fucking tank.

And, sooner or later, someone’s going to land him in the shit, and either he’ll get court-martialled or Steve won’t ever look at him again, and he has no idea which of those options would be worse.

Definitely the second one, he admits to himself after another moment of thought.

The little group that seem to have latched onto each other, against all odds and common sense, end up in a circle round a very small fire. Bucky, Dugan, Monty, Gabe, and for some reason Morita and a guy who only speaks to Gabe so who must be Dernier.

And Steve, of course.

Fuck. Fuck fuck _fuck._

At least Steve isn’t saying anything incriminating, like the fact that he’s known Bucky for years, or what his _name_ is, Christ this is a mess.

If worst comes to worst, Bucky figures that he can probably convince the guys that he’d made the whole relationship up, that it was just some sick little fantasy.

He ignores how painful that idea is.

They’re mostly talking about Steve, though, about the procedure and what exactly it had done to him, and Bucky listens with a mixture of relief and nausea growing in his stomach.

Steve’s never going to be sick again, is the only bright spot he can manage to focus on.

“You can write your Stevie now, Sarge,” Gabe says in a kind voice, and Bucky’s head snaps up. He can’t bring himself to look at Steve, not even for a second.

“Yeah, she must have been going frantic without a word,” Dugan says. 

God, that’s probably true, other than the pronoun. He hadn’t been able to write Steve for weeks, he can’t imagine what must have been going through his head.

Not that it matters now, he guesses.

“Stevie,” Steve says, and only Bucky knows that it isn’t a question.

“Barnes here has himself a girl back home,” Monty says. “He kept us all entertained with stories about her.” Bucky winces; that makes it sound like he’s been telling them about his sex life. “Apparently she’s a scrappy little blonde.”

“Is that so?” Bucky can’t read Steve’s voice, so he risks one quick glance at his face. Which he also can’t read, fuck.

“Yeah, kinda,” Bucky says, which might be a lie, but at least it’s a lie that’s been to bed with the truth a time or two. “These lot are just jealous, don’t listen to a word they say.”

Please, don’t listen to any of this. Go back to Brooklyn. Let me wake up and find out that this is just some dumb fucking dream. This whole war is a fucking nightmare, might as well make it a literal one.

Bucky decides that a subject change is in order.

Unfortunately, Monty gets there first. “So, Cap, what do we call you?”

Steve is a horrible liar. Luckily, only Bucky would know how to read the flash of panic that crosses his face.

“Grant,” Steve says after only a second’s hesitation, and, well, that was smart thinking. Isn’t even a lie, really, which Bucky knows will keep Steve’s overactive conscience happy.

“And where you from, Grant?” 

“Jesus, Dum-Dum, this some kind of an interrogation?” Bucky asks, because he’s proud of being Brooklyn born-and-bred and he knows he’s mentioned it more than a time or two. And both him and Steve - Grant, whatever - hailing from the same neighbourhood, well, it wouldn’t be enough to get anyone suspicious on its own, but they should be playing it as safe as they can right now.

“It’s okay, um, Barnes,” Steve says, and Bucky’s last name has never sounded stranger than it does right then. “I’m from New Jersey,” he continues, and _what the actual fuck_ , Steve, fucking _Jersey?_

In the back of his mind Bucky knows that Steve just made another smart move. He highly doubts anyone here could tell the difference between, say, a Brooklyn accent and an East Side one, but they might be able to pick up on Steve’s way of talking enough to place him as not too far from a New Yorker.

Still. _Jersey._ If Steve ever wants to speak to him again, they’re going to have a long talk about that.

No-one questions that, of course, and the conversation turns to Steve’s ridiculous costume, which Bucky admits he’s kind of curious to hear about as well. It had very clearly been designed to show off as much of Steve’s body as possible without being completely obscene, and Bucky’s slightly annoyed at whoever had thought of that.

Well, annoyed and maybe just a touch grateful. It’s rare to get a view that nice in the middle of a bloody war.

Steve isn’t going to sell him out, obviously, Bucky had never really worried about that. But he’d thought Steve might give the game away accidentally, or stammer so much that the guys would figure out something was off just from how nervous he was acting.

That’s one less thing he has to worry about. He won’t wake up to a blue discharge tomorrow, though if his fucking hands don’t stop shaking someone might try to hand him a medical one.

He still has to face Steve, though, and after barely an hour the group starts to turn in, clearly looking forward to the shitty mattresses and squeaking bunk beds that are waiting in the barracks. It’s better than a stone floor, Bucky will admit, but right now he doesn’t think he could sleep if he was knocked over the head with a crowbar.

It ends up being him and Steve sat by the fire alone, of course. He guesses it might be better to have the confrontation over with, rather than having it hanging over his head.

“You’re not a girl,” Bucky says, wincing at how stupid his words sound.

“I know I’m not.” Steve sounds very calm, which could mean anything.

“No - I mean, I never thought of you as anything but a guy, Stevie,” he says, desperate to at least make himself understood. “I just - they asked me if I had a girl back home, and it felt like a lie to say yes and a lie to say no, and - I thought I was going to die in there, so it wouldn’t matter.”

Steve looks at him then, finally, with an odd expression. Bucky isn’t sure if it’s just that he’s never seen that look before, or if Steve’s new face makes it hard to read.

“I’m not mad at you, Buck,” Steve says, and _oh,_ Bucky hadn’t even thought to hope that Steve might not be angry at all.

“I feel like you should be,” he replies honestly.

“I’m actually kind of flattered?” Steve laughs quietly. “I can’t believe you told your army buddies stories about me.”

“They ate ‘em up,” Bucky says, still in shock that this might turn out alright, against all the odds. “I didn’t tell them anything, y’know, private, though.”

Steve gives him a look from under his eyelashes, which somehow look even more stupidly long than usual. Why the fuck would this serum thing enhance those? It fucking better not be because they were planning to send him on any seduction missions.

“I should hope not,” Steve says, and it takes Bucky a second to place his tone. “It might have been hard to explain how much you love sucking my prick when they all thought you were talking about a girl.”

 _Fuck._ Yes, that was the exact same voice Steve used on him when he wanted to get Bucky into bed, and it had never failed before.

Bucky groans, very quietly. “I’ve still got us into a mess, though,” he says, trying very hard not to get distracted from the conversation.

Steve sighs, taking the unsubtle subject change in stride. “Not your fault, Buck. I know I told you I’d follow you over here, but I didn’t even believe myself, deep down. There’s no way you could have known I’d show up.”

“I didn’t ever say your surname,” Bucky offers.

“Well, that’s something. Only Peggy and Colonel Phillips know who I am right now.” Steve looks like he’s thinking hard about something. “I can probably convince them I want to be known as Grant Rogers. I can make up something about keeping my privacy, maybe. None of the posters ever bothered with my name, anyway. Everyone just knows me as Captain America.”

Steve sounds just the slightest bit bitter on those last few words, which Bucky makes a mental note of.

Out loud, he says: “Grant’s a pretty righteous name. I reckon they’d go for it.”

Steve laughs at that, and Bucky feels that familiar warmth inside his chest that he used to get whenever he’d managed to cheer Steve up on one of his bad days.

“I’ll give it a go tomorrow,” Steve says. “You should get some rest, Buck. You look dead on your - well, on your ass, I guess.”

Bucky rolls his eyes but gets up, thankful that his legs remain steady. He starts over towards the barracks, only looking back once to watch Steve still sitting there, a faint, too-large silhouette against the dim glow of the fire.

Jesus. What have they got themselves into?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have nothing against people from New Jersey! Nor do Bucky and Steve, really, they are just playing on the mock-feud between people from New York and New Jersey, which I tried to research but could not really understand tbh. So yeah don't take them literally here.
> 
> Also, I took to heart that saying about soldiers in WW1 and WW2 saying fuck a lot or just swearing constantly in general, as you can see from Bucky's inner monologue.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe this has over 300 hits?? And some lovely comments and kudos as well, thank you all so much! I wasn't expecting that response so I'm extending it from 3 chapters to 5! 3 and 4 we will change to Steve's POV but then back to Bucky (and all his swearing) for the final chapter.
> 
> Again, thank you <3

* * *

Steve isn’t sure what to think when he and Bucky are called to Peggy’s office a week after the formation of the Howling Commandos. Bucky’s his second-in-command, of course, so that part of the summons makes sense, but when they get there Peggy - Agent Carter, he should be calling her, he reminds himself - is sitting behind her desk sipping a mug of tea, with not a map or a battle plan in sight.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t about a hundred of them in the room, of course, but usually if they’re called in here it’s for some kind of a strategy session, and it’s pretty hard to plan for a mission without any of the necessary intel spread out in front of you.

He doesn’t like not knowing what he’s walking into.

“Agent Carter,” he says, falling as easily into parade rest as if he’d been doing it his entire life. He still can’t quite get used to how swiftly this new body obeys him. Bucky takes the same stance, though Steve thinks there’s more than a hint of reluctance in his movements. “Is everything alright?”

“Oh, relax, please,” she says. “This isn’t about the war effort.”

That doesn’t actually reassure Steve. “What is it about then, ma’am?”

“I want to know why we’re calling you Grant,” Peggy says in her crisp accent. “The real reason, boys.” She turns to Bucky. “And why you two are acting like you’ve never met when Steve was ready to walk across an entire country and singlehandedly break into one of HYDRA’s largest bases on the very small chance that you might be breathing inside it.”

Steve can feel Bucky tense up beside him, unsurprisingly. He feels like his heart’s about to beat out of his chest, so a bit of tension is nothing to be ashamed of.

Shit. How could he have been so stupid? Peggy, Phillips and Howard all know that he and Bucky have been friends since they were kids. It wouldn’t be too hard to put the pieces together with Steve requesting he be known as Grant and wonder if the two things were somehow connected.

“It’s my fault,” Bucky says, in a quiet but clear voice.

Well, that’s not happening.

“It is absolutely not his fault,” Steve insists, looking away from Peggy to send a quick glare at Bucky. Who scowls right back, of course.

“You’re a hell of a lot less disposable than me, pal,” Bucky says to him, though they both know that Peggy’s listening to every word.

Steve can’t even begin to come up with a response that conveys just how much he disagrees with that statement, so he’s almost glad when Peggy holds up her hand, clearly requesting silence from both of them.

She has a too-knowing look in her eyes pretty much all the time, but Steve thinks it’s deepened slightly. He feels his pulse start to speed up even more.

“Boys,” Peggy says, and neither of them protest the way she’s addressing them. “I’m about to tell you something that, if it were spread around, would utterly destroy both my career and my life.”

Steve has no idea what she’s about to trust them with, but out of the corner of his eye he sees an expression of disbelief pass quickly over Bucky’s face, so he guesses he’s the only one not in the know.

“I have been in a committed relationship with a woman for the past two years,” Peggy says distinctly, with no hint of shame. “Does that change your answer?”

Steve feels like he’s been frozen in place; he’s reeling from both her words and the matter-of-fact way she had spoken them. He can’t even begin to think of a coherent reply.

“I think you’ve got us figured,” Bucky says, and Steve can tell that he’s scared. Even if they have the exact same leverage over Peggy as she does over them, they’ve gone years with a bone-deep, constant terror that someone will find out about them, and that kind of fear doesn’t go away easily.

Maybe it doesn’t go away at all.

“I understand why you’re keeping your distance from one another, then,” she says, and Steve still can’t take in the fact that he isn’t able to detect even a hint of judgement or disgust in her tone. “But I don’t quite follow the reasoning behind the name change?”

“That really is my fault, ma’am,” Bucky says, sounding embarrassed but not afraid anymore, at least not that Steve can tell. “I told the boys - the Commandos - about my girl back home, called Stevie. I didn’t expect this punk to show up here and screw it all up.”

Steve can’t help but blush a little as he registers that Bucky sounds fond, rather than annoyed. He looks anxiously at Peggy again, but she only has a small smile on her face.

“I see,” she says. “Well, that clears a few things up. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you this, but your secret’s safe with me.”

“As yours is with us,” Steve says, finally finding his words. “I - I don’t know what to say, Peggy. Thank you.”

“Am I the first person you’ve told?” She looks almost sad at that thought.

“Yeah.” Bucky answers her for the both of them.

“I’m sorry. It’s hard enough having to hide; I can’t imagine doing it alone. I have a few close friends that know the truth, at least.”

“Guess we got one too now,” Bucky says unexpectedly, and Steve’s heart feels lighter at that thought.

“You do indeed,” Peggy says, still looking warmly at the both of them. “I’ll handle Howard and Phillips if they get suspicious - which I doubt they will, to be honest with you.”

Steve agrees with her, now that he’s able to think rationally again. Howard is too occupied with his machines to take any real notice of the relationships between soldiers, and Phillips has his mind too much on the big picture of war to have much room left for caring about individuals.

Peggy manages to care about both, somehow, day in and day out. What was that expression his ma used to say about the neighbourhood bullies whenever he’d come home scraped-up and holding back tears? She’d said the bullies _can’t see the forest for the trees,_ or something along those lines. Steve is pretty sure Peggy sees the forest, the trees, and every single leaf.

“Thank you,” Steve says again, feeling like those two little words have never been more inadequate.

“Go on, off with you,” she says, shooing them away with a quick wave of her hand. “I’ve a war to win, you know.”

Her dismissive words don’t sound the slightest bit harsh with that smile still on her face, and Bucky and Steve leave the office with matching stunned looks.

That had really, really not been what he’d expected to happen.

“Well, that was - something,” Bucky says quietly, echoing Steve’s thoughts.

Steve doesn’t have a chance to reply, because Dugan waves them over to join in a conversation about who would win in a fight, Captain America or Superman.

Bucky votes Cap; Steve is one hundred percent sure that Superman could take him any day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aw :( I hate having to hide any part of my identity, poor Steve and Bucky.
> 
> Steve very clearly still has a small crush on Peggy.
> 
> Thank you for reading! Next chapter will be a longer one.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long and emotional chapter!

* * *

Miraculously, things seem to settle into normalcy after that - or, well, what passes for normal when you’re in the middle of fighting a war. Neither Howard or Colonel Phillips ever look at Bucky or Steve with any emotion other than exasperation - when they’ve disobeyed orders on a mission - or grudging admiration when they pull off feats that, in Dugan’s words, _put your dumb comic books to shame, Cap._

The Commandos don’t seem to suspect a thing. Steve is grateful for the Army tradition of calling soldiers by either their last name or their rank; he almost never has to answer to Grant, which makes that part of the whole charade much easier to keep up. 

What’s harder is pretending that he doesn’t know Bucky. 

They must have thousands of little jokes and memories and moments that they’ve shared for years without thinking anything of it. It’s almost painful to stop himself from joining in when Falsworth starts questioning Bucky endlessly about New York, or from letting out a half-tearful laugh when Bucky tells the story of how him and his Stevie had met when they were kids.

But it’s what they have to do to survive, and it’s not like Steve’s unfamiliar with that concept. So they keep going, and if Steve feels like he’s under just a bit more strain every day, well, they’re alive and together, and he’d do a lot more than this for those two simple truths.

Some nights - more than half, really - talk turns to the various women the men have either been with or tried their luck with. Dugan can usually hold court for a while, with his outrageous tales that Steve really hopes are at least exaggerated, if not made up entirely, but everyone else is expected to chime in every so often.

Steve draws a blank the first time he’s asked if there’s a sweetheart waiting for him back in New Jersey - good lord, why had he ever said he was from _Jersey,_ surely there must have been another option - and the longer he goes without answering, the more the panic starts to build up inside him.

He feels exposed, like somehow they can read his desires on his face, desires that the world calls shameful and perverted if they’re being _kind;_ he doesn’t know how to -

“No need to hide from us, Cap,” Bucky drawls, and oh hell, what is he about to say? “We’ve all seen you and Agent Carter making eyes at each other.”

 _What?_ That’s - that couldn’t be more ridiculous. Him and Peggy? Bucky should know better than anyone just how absurd that idea is.

Bucky’s staring at Steve so hard that it looks like he wants to drill a hole in his head with his gaze, and a moment later Steve finally catches on. _Oh._ Okay, so that actually makes sense. 

He tries for a bashful smile, knowing that his Irish skin is probably helping him out by turning a nice shade of red at the thought of him and Peggy - ah, well, at that thought.

This is perfect, actually. It keeps suspicion off not only him and Bucky, but Peggy as well. 

“I don’t like to kiss and tell,” he says, which is technically nothing but the truth.

Admittedly, it’s true because telling anyone about the intimate moments he and Bucky have shared over the years would have got them both beaten to within an inch of their lives - and that would have been the best-case scenario. But that’s an unnecessary detail.

At hearing his not-quite-denial, the Commandos immediately live up to their name, letting out a series of howls that make Steve very glad they’re far away from enemy lines right now.

Steve sends an apologetic glance at Bucky, who gives him an almost imperceptible wink.

They’re still safe.

* * *

Pretending Bucky is an almost-stranger to Steve doesn’t get any easier with time. He’s tempted to turn the tables and invent a childhood friend he can tell stories about, because without Bucky in them his tales feel nothing but dull and lifeless.

But he’s pretty sure that adding another lie to their pile would lead to disaster; inevitably Steve would tell someone about this one time he and his friend had nicked tea trays from school and sledged down the city streets after a fresh snowfall - or any other memory, really, because near enough every story he could tell has Bucky in a starring role - and then a few days later Bucky would tell the same tale from his point of view, and everything would be over for good.

So Steve just sticks with a watered-down version of the truth: he was too sick as a kid to do much, but he did a lot of sketching, and he liked exploring the neighbourhood when he was well enough to go outside - thankfully, none of the guys have ever been to New Jersey, so none of the questions they ask are too detailed.

It’s a little scary just how small and boring his life story becomes once you remove Bucky from it.

He’s just started to wonder if they can make it through to the end of the war - God, let there be an end to it - without their fragile little house of cards collapsing, when they’re sent out on a mission to map out the terrain surrounding a nearby village that’s been captured by the Nazis, and find themselves caught in a trap not one of them had seen coming.

Steve doesn’t know if the Nazis were just waiting on the off-chance that someone would show up, or if they’ve found a new way to spy on communications, but finding that intel out won’t be the slightest bit relevant if none of them make it back to base alive.

There are maybe thirty or so men, all with at least one gun. Straightaway, Steve focuses on deflecting bullets with his shield, trusting his men to fall into their roles without him barking orders at them. 

From what he can tell, they’re doing an excellent job. Dernier and Morita have managed to find cover, and they’re throwing the hand grenades that Stark had modified for them just far enough away that they only hit the enemy, rather than any of the Commandos.

Dugan and Jones are shooting calmly, standing back-to-back, which Steve would be staring at in shock if he wasn’t trying to keep every bit of his attention on preventing his team from getting killed.

Every few seconds, a Nazi drops to the ground with a neat bullet through either his head or his neck, so Steve knows that Bucky’s around somewhere, probably crouching uncomfortably in a tree.

Whenever he has to shoot from a tree, Bucky complains for hours about finding twigs in his uniform and how his hair will never be right again. Steve can’t wait to listen to the moans about the lack of decent pomade over here. 

He spins around just in time to catch a bullet with the very edge of the shield, and a moment later the man who’d fired it is a silent corpse.

His heart is racing as if he’s just run a marathon - though he isn’t even certain that would tire him out; it’s not like he’s had a chance to try - but he’s pretty sure the battle’s only been going on for about ten or fifteen minutes before he hears the call in German to retreat.

The others fire a few last shots, but Steve didn’t actually have a gun on him, only his shield. Bucky is going to kick his ass for that later.

Then the last Nazi to run from the clearing calls ahead a quick sentence to his comrades that makes Steve’s blood feel frozen in his veins.

One of the handful of German words Steve has picked up is _sniper._

Dernier swears loudly and rattles off a quick sentence in French.

“He said the sniper is down,” Gabe confirms with a grim look.

Steve looks around wildly. Jesus, fuck, why is Bucky so good at finding cover?

He recognises how irrational that thought is as he finally spots a boot dangling from a tree about thirty feet away.

He’s never been more grateful for the serum as he crosses the corpse-strewn ground in a couple of seconds, knowing without needing to look back that the Commandos will be right behind him.

“Hey, fellas,” Bucky says, and Steve near enough collapses out of relief. 

Until he sees the way Bucky’s got one hand clenched tightly over the side of his thigh, where a wet patch is spreading slowly but surely through the material of his uniform.

They get him down from the tree as carefully as they can, but Steve can tell that Bucky has to grit his teeth more than once to stop himself from screaming.

Oh, God.

It’s not a good shot, not if they’d been aiming to kill - and Steve assumes they must have been; if there’s value in taking any of the Commandos captive he’s pretty sure he’d be the first to be targeted.

But it’s a shot.

And they’re sixteen miles from base camp. Sixteen miles of dense woodland, and the sun’s going to set in a few hours. There could be half an army hidden between them and the nearest medic, and they’d never know until it was too late.

Morita’s already kneeling at Bucky’s side, med-kit out in front of him, looking grim but calm.

Steve’s ma was a nurse, and he’s had more personal experience with medical issues than he likes to think about. But he can’t do anything but stand there helplessly, watching as Morita cuts away a square from Bucky’s trousers, revealing the wound.

“It didn’t go through your leg exactly,” Morita says to Bucky. “Best I can figure, it came close to missing you but swiped a chunk of flesh on the way past. If we can get it to stop bleeding so fast, you’ll be fine.”

Bucky looks like he’s trying for a reassuring grin, but it ends up as a horrible kind of rictus when Morita starts putting pressure on his leg.

Steve can’t think straight. He’s supposed to be in command here, and his brain is nothing but a whirling mess of anguished _what-ifs_ that aren’t going to do Bucky or anyone else a lick of good.

And he's overly conscious that he can't show any more emotion that would be natural if it was Dernier lying there, or Falsworth.

“I’ll stay with Morita,” he manages to say in a clear voice. “You lot go scout out our route back. Once he’s - once we’ve stabilised him, we’ll need to start heading back slowly.”

The others leave without complaint, still with a battle-ready air even though there's no sign of the enemy returning.

And then it's just the three of them.

“Hey, Sarge,” Morita says in a gentle voice that makes Steve blink back yet another wave of tears. Morita would have made a good nurse or doctor, he thinks, missing his ma in a fierce, desperate way.

“Just need you to get these down, alright,” Morita continues, holding out a couple of pills. Steve fumbles for his canteen, holding it with one hand while he props Bucky’s head up with the other.

Bucky opens his mouth obediently, and Steve doesn’t miss Morita’s quiet sigh of relief as they watch him swallow the pills down.

“Sleeping pills,” Morita tells them both. “Keeping you awake doesn’t do any good unless you’ve got a head injury. This should slow your heart rate down and maybe stop the bleeding.”

Bucky looks like he’s fading fast, which Steve hopes is a good thing.

It’s a special kind of agony, to be sitting by Bucky as he bleeds, and not to be able to hold his hand.

“Stevie,” Bucky murmurs, half asleep already.

Morita frowns slightly. “She’s safe, Barnes. Back home in New York, remember?”

Steve holds his breath.

“No,” Bucky says. “No, he, he came here. Fuckin’ reckless idiot. Told’im to stay.” His eyes are fully closed, but he looks far from peaceful. “Stevie?”

It doesn’t sound like one lover calling out for another. It sounds like the plaintive cry of a child who’s hurt and far from home.

Steve is helpless to do anything but respond.

“I’m here,” he says, resting his hand lightly over one of Bucky’s. “I’m here, I promise. Try and get some rest, okay? Everything will be better in the morning.”

He doesn’t look at Morita.

Come the morning, Bucky and Steve could both be kicked out of the army, sent home in public disgrace and dishonour.

He’s not going to think about the consequences of what he’s done, not yet. Not when it looks like Bucky is finally drifting into what looks like an unbroken sleep.

Morita clears his throat, and Steve waits for the hammer to fall.

“I already knew.”

Wait. _What?_

“I have reason to be interested in news of genetic experiments,” Morita - no, Jim; this doesn’t seem like a conversation that should be held between people not on first-name terms - continues, and Steve winces when he remembers the horror stories that have filtered through to soldiers on the ground about the real purpose of the concentration camps in Austria and Germany.

Of course Jim would be anxious about the idea that governments were trying to create superhumans. Now that Steve thinks about it, he never heard of any other unit that might be being prepared to be candidates for Project Rebirth. And every one of the men he’d been in training with had been white.

Jim’s looking at him as though he knows every single thought that just crossed Steve’s mind.

“I read an article that had been written very shortly after your - procedure,” Jim continues in an almost too-calm voice. “It included what I assume is your full name?”

“Steven Grant Rogers. Brooklyn,” Steve says, and underneath the panic he feels a quiet rush of relief fill him.

He really, really doesn’t like having to hide.

Jim nods. He clearly hadn’t needed the confirmation, but maybe he was glad to have Steve admit it. “I wasn’t sure, at first, why you were using your middle name,” he says. “Then I saw the way you look at Barnes when you don’t think anyone’s watching, and I remembered about Barnes having a sweetheart called Stevie.”

Fuck. It seems so obvious when everything’s laid out like that.

He can’t wait any longer. He needs to know. “Are you going to tell the others?”

 _About me and Bucky,_ he wants to say, but he can’t make himself finish the sentence, not even when he and Jim - and an unconscious Bucky, of course - are the only people in sight.

“No,” Jim says, and it sounds final.

Steve should leave it. He’s already more grateful to Jim for patching up Bucky than he can begin to say; he can just add one more reason he owes the man to the pile.

But Jim is only the second person in the whole world that knows, and Steve can’t help but ask him again.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did,” he says, and it’s mostly true. These men have fought beside him for a while now, and beside Bucky for even longer. Maybe they deserve to know who - or what - exactly they have hiding in their midst.

“The others don’t fully understand how hard you had to fight to get me and Gabe onto the team,” Jim says. Steve thinks back to the shouting matches he’d had with Colonel Phillips, and realises that it’s true he never really mentioned them to the rest of the Commandos.

Still. That’s a different issue, even if Steve can’t quite articulate why.

“But that was - you’re good soldiers, good men. That was just the decent thing to do. It wouldn’t have made any sense not to fight for you.”

“You’d be surprised,” is all Jim says in reply.

They sit in silence for a few moments. Jim is absentmindedly twisting a spare bit of thread from his med-kit around his fingers, and Steve is staring in absolute concentration at a button on the coat sleeve that’s keeping Bucky warm.

He can’t bring himself to look at Bucky’s face, usually so full of expression, which is eerily still in his sleep.

Jim’s thread snaps, and he sighs and looks at Steve. “If you don’t treat Gabe and myself any differently, why should I think less of you now, Captain?”

And that’s - well, that’s a good question.

Are the two things comparable?

“We can hide,” Steve points out. “You and Gabe can’t.”

“True. But that’s not my point.” Steve thinks that Jim sounds a bit exasperated now, which he feels bad about. “My point is, if me and him were born with something that makes certain people treat us like we’re not quite human, and you and Barnes were born with something else that has the same effect, why would I not be able to understand?”

“You think we were born, ah, queer?” Steve asks curiously, feeling a little thrill at the daring of saying that word out loud, even if it’s under just about the worst circumstances possible.

Jim shrugs. “I have no idea. I don’t really care either way. You’re not hurting anyone by it, far as I’m concerned. Your secret’s safe with me, Cap.”

It’s almost an exact echo of what Peggy had said, and Steve feels like the fear that lives permanently inside him just retreated a little bit more.

“Thanks, Jim,” he says, only realising after he’s spoken that it’s the first time he’s not called him Morita.

“Don’t mention it, Cap.”

Steve takes the response literally, as well as in the spirit it was meant. He won’t bring the topic up again. It would be too dangerous, anyway, once they get back into their usual routine and are surrounded by the other Commandos night and day.

He won’t ever forget, though.

They have one more person on their side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't written much about the Howling Commandos before, I'm enjoying it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no words...1k hits and 100 kudos - thank you all so much!! This story keeps accidentally growing, both because of the amazing response and because every chapter I write seems to end up fairly angsty and I don't love ending my stories on anything but a happy note. I loved researching and writing this chapter so I hope you enjoy it too!
> 
> Chapter warnings in end notes. Also, there are a couple of flashbacks to Steve and Bucky when they were younger, I hope these aren't confusing/jarring.

* * *

A guy Bucky had done a few odd jobs for in Dumbo had once paid him with a half-bottle of cheap whiskey instead of cash, which would have been an asshole move except that Bucky had been nineteen at the time, and more than willing to have a few dimes less in grocery money if it meant he could get rip-roaringly - and illegally, naturally - drunk.

He’d shared it with Steve, of course, except the _sharing_ had turned into Steve having a few sips then scrunching his cute little nose up at the taste, and Bucky deciding that it would be a good idea to down the whole fucking bottle in an attempt to give himself some liquid courage.

It had been the first night he’d kissed Steve.

A fumbling, heart-racing, over-in-a-second kiss, sure, but a kiss nonetheless.

He’d got up the next morning with dread growing inside him from his first waking breath, only remembering a few cracked fragments of memories from the night before, but managing to put them together enough to know that he had screwed up so bad that he might as well just force open their stubborn little fourth-floor window and fling himself out right there and then.

And then Steve had walked into the apartment, from where he’d been out to buy a pastry for them to split for a nice breakfast, and had walked right up to Bucky and given him a quick, sure kiss.

The panicked fear still hadn’t gone away after that, but it had softened and made room for something new, something better than he could have ever hoped for.

Years later, he cracks one eye open to see the off-white walls of a hospital room, slamming it shut again when the light feels like a needle piercing itself into his skull.

What the hell happened to him?

He could have lived a hundred lifetimes without ever waking up to that roiling mix of guilt and shame and fear sloshing around in his stomach again.

Fuck.

He isn’t even sure what he’s done; his head feels about as cotton-stuffed as if he’d drunk down that whiskey again but this time mixed it with Dum-Dum’s rotgut homebrew.

But he knows without a moment’s doubt that he’s done something to be ashamed of, and soon enough his traitorous brain confirms it.

Oh, God. Morita. 

He knows.

Someone knows.

Bucky’s world has crashed down around him, and he’d been the one to do it.

* * *

Bucky and Steve had been confirmed when they were thirteen, of course, just like all the good Catholic kids were in their neighbourhood. Steve had taken the whole idea of picking a patron saint very seriously, combing through his ma’s battered copy of Butler’s Lives, squinting the whole time when he couldn’t make out the tiny writing until Bucky had forcibly taken the book off him with a _c’mon, you fool, I’ve got to pick too, we can read together._

They hadn’t even known each other that long back then, but Bucky had figured out quick that if you wanted to get Steve to stop pushing his frail body to the brink, you had to phrase it pretty smartly. Telling Steve that his eyes weren’t good enough would have made him determined to read the whole damn book, the little punk, but pointing out that Bucky could use the knowledge too was a surefire way to get him to back down.

“This is so you, Stevie,” Bucky had said, half-jokingly pointing towards the entry for Saint Camillus. “Look, he’s patron saint of nurses! And it says he was real sick his whole life, but he wouldn’t let anyone help him, and he used to crawl to visit other sick people when he couldn’t walk to them.”

“Bet it was annoying being that guy’s best friend,” Steve had said wryly, so Bucky had elbowed him very, very gently in the ribs.

“Dumbass.”

“Steven Grant Camillus Rogers,” Steve had said in a musing kind of voice. And crap, Bucky hadn’t actually wanted Steve to pick a strange old Latin name, he’d just been messing around.

“Sounds weird,” he’d pointed out.

“So? It’s not about that. It’s about which saint represents you, and who you want to be your protector.”

Those were two different things, Bucky was pretty certain, but he hadn’t said anything.

“C’mon, Buck,” Steve had said after Bucky had read a few more sentences out loud. “You must have at least a couple ideas of who you want?”

Bucky hadn’t actually been thinking about himself. He’d flicked a few pages over from Camillus and spotted something about astronomers.

“Maybe Saint Dominic,” he’d said, trying hard to sound like it hadn’t been a split second decision. “I like the stars, y’know?”

“We live in New York, Buck. You can’t even properly see the stars.”

“I like that they’re there anyway, though,” Bucky had said, only realising afterwards that it was kind of true. “You don’t have to see them for them to be real.”

Steve had given him an odd look, then, his face lit up by the last glows of the sun, and Bucky never forgot the swift rush of exhilaration that had swept through him at the sight, which had been closely followed by a deep sense of shame.

He loved Steve.

Well, of course he loved Steve. How could he not?

But he didn’t just love him in a friendly way, or the way he loved his sisters even when they were being a giant pain in his ass.

He loved him the way you loved the person you wanted to share everything with, wanted to wake up in the morning next to, and lie down by again at night.

Bucky hadn't known what to do with the revelation, other than try to push it so far to the back of his mind that maybe it would just disappear on its own.

Steve had fallen asleep not too long after, thankfully without noticing anything was wrong, and Bucky had carefully moved him into a vaguely comfortable-looking position.

Bucky had kept reading until he couldn’t make out a word even with his face pressed right up to the pages, determined to find his saint before he let himself sleep.

When he'd found the right one, he knew instantly.

He’d let Steve think that he was going with Dominic, right up until they were stood before a priest in a neat little row, Bucky at the start and Steve almost at the end - how annoying that their last names were so far apart in the alphabet - and Bucky had muttered two short words when asked who he had chosen as his Confirmation name.

“Saint Jude,” he’d said, feeling small and mean for wishing that the line was going the other direction, ‘cause then it would have been Steve’s deaf ear turned towards Bucky.

The priest repeated it in his booming voice, anyway, so it didn’t matter.

Steve had ended up picking Saint Michael instead of Camillus, but he’d told Bucky about that already, so there were no surprises there.

Bucky couldn’t help but feel a bit sad when he thought about Steve naming himself after the patron of soldiers instead of nurses, but it wasn’t really his business.

“It’s none of your business,” he’d muttered sullenly when faced with Steve’s predictable twenty questions. “I like Saint Jude. All there is to it.”

Steve had dropped it, though Bucky never knew if it was because he’d believed him or because he could tell that Bucky really didn't want to talk about it anymore.

“Alright, Buck,” he’d said. “Sorry.” He’d laughed a little then, and Bucky had viciously stamped down every emotion that rose up in him at hearing that sound. “I bet it was just because you wanted your initials to match, right?”

James Buchanan Jude Barnes. J.B.J.B. Ah. That hadn’t actually been deliberate, not that he’s going to let on. Steve, the little shit, would never let him hear the end of it.

He hadn’t regretted the choice, though, not then and not once since then.

The patron saint of lost and desperate causes still seems like a pretty fitting one for him to be tied to.

* * *

He’d had cause to pray to his saint more than a few times in his sorry life, but he doesn’t think he’s ever meant it more fervently than he does now.

_Please. Please, let me not have destroyed everything. Let Steve make it out, at least. He doesn’t deserve this, it was my fault, fuck, I’m so sorry, so fucking sorry -_

His rambling pleas inside his head - Christ, he hopes they’d all been silent; he’s feeling too off-balance to know for sure - are interrupted by the creaking sound of the door.

He isn’t sure whether he tenses up or relaxes when he sees that it’s just Steve. His body isn’t properly responding to his cues yet. What the hell had been in those pills?

That reminds him.

“Morita,” he croaks out, his voice sounding like he’s got a throat full of knives.

Well, that had been an unnecessary image. Fuck you too, brain.

Steve puts on his irritating little _everything’s going to be alright_ smile, and comes to sit on the edge of Bucky’s bed.

“It’s all fine,” he says, which is a goddamn _lie,_ Stevie, don’t fucking lie to me just ‘cause you don’t think I can handle the truth.

Probably his eyes are conveying at least a bit of what he’s thinking, because Steve takes his hand and squeezes it.

Bucky thinks he’s trying to pull away - they’re at the base, for fuck’s sake; even if somehow Steve’s managed to get him into one of the hospital’s tiny private rooms - but either his body still doesn’t want to obey him, or he just isn’t trying very hard, because Steve’s hand stays wrapped around his. 

He’s feeling sorry enough for himself that he can’t deny it’s kind of nice. Not like they’ve been able to touch a whole lot out here, and Bucky’s skin sometimes feels there’s a fierce aching spread out across every inch of it, a longing for the way they’d been able to share a casual, easy kiss or embrace when they were back in Brooklyn.

“It really is okay, Buck,” Steve says in a voice that sounds almost like Mrs Rogers had when she was comforting one of them. “Jim already knew about us, and he won’t tell anyone. I trust him.”

That’s too much to process. Bucky decides not to even bother trying.

“He read some article on me, where they called me Steve, and put the pieces together,” Steve explains anyway. “He really didn’t seem to care. I’m still a bit in shock about it all.”

If Bucky knows anything about Steve, that’s a giant fucking understatement. Out of the two of them, Steve has always been the one most afraid of someone finding out their secret, though Bucky’s never quite been sure why.

He’d bet his every possession that Steve’s been going through hell while Bucky was sleeping.

“Sorry,” Bucky says gruffly, stroking his thumb over the back of Steve’s hand in that way that always calms him down.

“Not your fault.”

It very clearly is, though.

But Bucky’s just become aware of the pain that’s still radiating through his leg, and he feels like he’s rapidly fading back into exhaustion, so he decides that they can leave that discussion until later. When he’ll have a better chance of winning.

Besides, there’s something else he wants to know.

“How long was I out?”

“It’s about five in the afternoon,” Steve says. “We carried you back last night, so almost a full day.”

Steve very obviously means _I,_ when he says _we,_ and Bucky is abruptly glad for Steve’s super-strength. He would have been the logical person to take Bucky; none of the others would have questioned it for a moment.

He kind of wants to ask if it had been a fireman’s carry or bridal-style, but he likes the few scraps of dignity he’s got left so he stays silent.

He just slept for a fucking day, why do his eyes keep closing?

“Go to sleep, Buck,” Steve says gently. “I’ll try to be here when you wake up.”

Bucky hasn’t got any energy left to protest. He falls into sleep easily, and the last thing he feels is the faint pressure of soft lips on his forehead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: general Angst naturally. Brief mention of suicidal thoughts. Homophobia. And Bucky pining and generally being quite negative towards himself.
> 
> A few notes about the religious stuff in case you're interested:
> 
> 'Butler's Lives' = Butler's Lives of the Saints. I do have my own copy (I'm not religious, but I was raised as a strict Catholic), but it's currently in another country so the bits Bucky paraphrases are not direct quotes.
> 
> You can be confirmed (basically you make a commitment to the Church and are given the gift of the Holy Spirit in return) at any age over the age of 7 in the Catholic Church, but I'm not a fan of it happening that young. 13 is a very average age for it.
> 
> St Michael the Archangel, the Confirmation saint Steve ends up choosing for himself, is indeed the patron saint (well, one of a few) of soldiers. However, what Bucky doesn't know is that St Michael was originally known for being a healing angel (he is also now know as the patron saint of paramedics). Which makes him the perfect mixture of Steve's parents, who were a soldier and a nurse. (Excuse me while I have emotions about this.)
> 
> Aw. Bucky picked the patron saint of lost causes :( Btw St Jude Thaddeus is confusingly one of the 12 apostles but not the one who betrayed Jesus (that's Judas Iscariot). 
> 
> Feel free to ask for clarification/tell me if I got any of this stuff wrong.
> 
> As always, thank you so so much for reading.
> 
> PS there was in theory some foreshadowing to the Winter Soldier in this chapter, hopefully that came across a little!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry :( I said I was trying to write a non-angsty ending to this fic, and I honestly meant that at the time. But, well, we all know how the First Avenger ends, and I can't do it without going wildly non-canonical, which I didn't want to do. I've never posted a WIP where I haven't actually written most of it yet before, and the response to this has been so nice, thank you! So again I'm really sorry but I couldn't manage to wind this chapter and the next into a happy ending (I will try and make it hopeful at least!). I completely understand if you'd rather not read them. 
> 
> However!! Because of this, I am writing some sequels, both from the POV of some Howling Commandos, and then a longer one set probably during and then after Winter Soldier. And the series itself WILL have a happy ending. I know that's not the same, but that one is a promise!
> 
> Chapter warnings in end notes. Thank you all so much for reading along <3

* * *

Bucky tests out his leg a few days after the injury.

Steve’s off in yet another briefing, so Bucky can do some sprints around the compound without having a six-foot mother hen following him everywhere.

He can feel the wound still: the way the skin of his thigh feels tight around its edges, the rough drag of the raised scabs on the inside of the bandages, the pulsing, throbbing sensation that sings through his leg when he puts all his weight on it.

But it doesn’t hurt, not the way it should do when a bullet tore a piece of him apart not even a week ago.

He wants to take the bandages off, to check that he’s not imagining things. But Steve must have seen his ma wrap hundreds of bandages round bits and pieces of the both of them over the years, and Bucky knows that he’d get the damn thing off and then have no clue how to make it look all neat and tidy again.

But he wants to know. He wants to make sure that it’s still there.

He’s in no doubt that it healed faster than it should have done. He knows it in the same dark, half-buried part of him that thinks he shouldn’t survive this war, that maybe he should have died screaming on the operating table that haunts his every breath, or quietly with a bullet in his temple, or slow and drawn out with a shrapnel gut wound, the ones that rip your organs to little shreds that ain’t never getting put back together.

 _The Humpty fucking Dumpty of war,_ he mutters to himself with a humourless little laugh, glaring at a soldier nearby who jerks his head up in alarm at the sound.

The man turns away.

Bucky thinks about dying a hell of a lot, these days.

He doesn’t waste much time on thinking about living.

Used to be he’d spend the darkest hours of his sleepless nights back in Brooklyn wondering what he’d do if this was the time Steve didn’t make it, if the pneumonia or whooping cough or scarlet fever - Mary Mother of God, that had been a winter Bucky wouldn’t relive for all the luck in the world - finally got their claws hooked so tight into him that he couldn’t help but be dragged away, up into his new life as some kind of angel, most likely, while Bucky was left to drown in his own personal little hell on earth.

He’d never let himself think those thoughts during the day, and he’d sure as hell kick Steve’s ass - metaphorically, of course - if he ever got the sense _Steve_ was thinking anything along those lines, but somehow when he was lying in his too-cold bed, listening to the coughs wracking Steve’s thin body, or the wheezes of his overworked lungs - Bucky hated those sounds with a strength that only matched the guilt he felt at being grateful for them, as well, because they meant that Steve was still alive, still fighting - somehow, on those nights, Bucky’s faith in Steve’s ability to keep going through everything the world threw at him would curl up into a pathetic little ball inside his brain, and his fear would creep out instead, taking over until every thought that was left inside him was nothing more than a panicked, pleading refrain: _let him live, let him live, let him -_

The thought of living without Steve had been too much for him to bear. That’s one way - one of many - in which they’ve never been quite evenly matched. Bucky knows with a painful, soul-deep intimacy just what it’s like to live with the knowledge that, all other things being equal, most likely you’re going to outlive the love of your life.

 _Briefly, at least,_ is a thought that’s crossed his mind more than once, one that he knows Steve would find it hard to forgive him for.

But Steve’s never had to know that unspeakable agony of watching the man you love hurting and hurting when there’s nothing anyone in the world can do to help. So Steve can fuck right off.

Or, he hadn't ever known it until this Christ-damned war, at least.

Nowadays, he feels like their fates have been reversed. Steve’s the one that’s going to go on to brighter, better things, the one who’s going to see whatever’s left of a future for the world after the war finally burns itself out.

And Bucky, well.

Bucky’s only questions about his future are to do with it ending.

When is he going to die?

And how?

Hell, if some saint had decided to switch round his and Steve’s lifelines, trading in one for another, he wouldn’t even be mad for a second. It’d make sense, he thinks to himself with an odd kind of delirium building up inside him, wouldn’t it? Give the stand-up guy with a heart of gold a body to match that’ll last him through the years, and foist off his old, ticking-time-bomb fate on Bucky, who sure as hell doesn’t deserve a happy ending.

 _Cheers, Jude,_ he thinks to himself, saluting the darkening sky with only the faintest touch of bitterness.

* * *

Bucky can’t help but keep a closer eye on Morita - Jim - than he would have done otherwise, even after a few weeks have gone by. It isn’t that he doesn’t trust the guy; it’s just - well, what exactly does he get out of keeping their secret?

And, alright, he knows it doesn’t work like that, that if it was him in Jim’s position he wouldn’t be rushing off to the Colonel either. But still. 

The war’s made him about a thousand times less trusting of whatever goodness is left in humanity, which is probably something almost every soldier on the entire fucking planet would agree with. If Steve was any less, well, _Steve,_ it would have had the same effect on him, but so far Bucky’s seen no sign of it.

Steve and Jim are closer now, he thinks, which he guesses is a good thing. You’re less likely to sell out your friends, after all.

* * *

The war keeps on, and so do they.

Bucky gets very, very good at killing people.

He’d been good before, been singled out for his aim all the way back in basic, but this is something different.

Folks who can’t shoot straight - and there’s a hell of a lot of them, even in the middle of a war - always think it’s about the aiming.

Bucky’s heard men around him say that you just have to forget it’s another soldier you’re aiming at. Pretend it’s a target, or a pigeon, or a cardboard cutout in a German uniform, like the ones back in training.

Bucky thinks that’s just so much fucking bullshit.

There’s a hell of a lot that goes into being a good shot.

His gun’s a modified M1941 Johnson, tricked out by Howard Stark and his team of eager little engineers who’d most likely turn tail and run at even the thought of firing the fucking thing.

They know what they’re doing, though, he can admit that much. He’d had a decent Springfield before the Commandos were formed, but his new rifle isn’t so much a step up as on a whole different ladder. It shoots clean and straight, without any of the weird little quirks he’s had to get used to on every other gun he’s been handed before - usually by some higher-up who’s got no fucking clue that it isn’t as simple as a point-and-click arcade game.

But no matter how good your weapon is, that’s not what counts; not when it comes down to the reality that all your drills and training have been aimed at: turning you into just another killing machine for the army to trot out into the line of fire.

For one thing, there’s a hell of a lot more maths involved than Bucky would have guessed when he was a kid, that’s for sure. Wind direction and speed, where he’s shooting from, the angle he’s having to lie - or crouch, on the worst days - at, what might be in the way, how fast the guy you’re aiming at could be moving in the next few seconds - 

And even that doesn’t cover it all. Not that he makes those calculations consciously, especially not anymore. It’s automatic at this point - he winces whenever he thinks that word, no matter how true it is, because it makes him sound like the gun himself, rather than the person in control of it - and he’s more than able to work out how they all factor into one another on the fly, without having to stop and run a fucking equation in his head before a bullet flies through it.

That’s still not everything, though. Those are the logical parts of it, the things that - in theory - you can be taught, though Bucky would love to meet the teacher who could get all those skills knocked into some of the blockheads he was in training with.

The other side to it, the emotional side - or maybe the _lack_ of one, would be a better way to put it - is the part that Bucky’s pretty sure isn’t teachable, not really.

When you’re aiming your gun, drawing that invisible line between your scope and the mark your eye’s fixed on someone’s chest, or forehead, or thigh, you have to know that it’s a person at the other end of that line, someone who might have a family waiting for them. A lover. A child.

If you don’t think about that before you go for the shot, no matter how many bullseyes you’ve got on your little paper square, something in you is going to flinch away, very slightly, just enough to jerk your gun the tiniest bit off-target - which can be the difference between life and death in a war.

No, you have to remember, and you have to pull the trigger anyway.

There aren’t many people who are cut out for that line of work. 

Take Steve. He’d be a fucking useless sniper, even with his souped-up eyesight and his arms strong enough to aim a fucking cannon, most likely - Christ, sometime they’ve got to actually test Steve’s strength out, because all the Commandos keep throwing out these bullshit suggestions - _hey, I bet Cap could lift that tank up!_ \- and it’s messing with Bucky’s already screwed-up head.

Steve’s smart as hell, always has been. He could learn to make all the calculations in his head, maybe just as good as Bucky can. He could do them fast, as well, the way you need to. In a range, Steve and Bucky might be near enough evenly matched, which is a weird thought.

But put him in battle? Or, no, not even battle, because that’s a heat-of-the-moment kind of place, where people make decisions they wouldn’t have dreamed of if they’d been in their right minds.

Snipers don’t go into battle.

They lie just outside it. Waiting. Watching, for the perfect moment to strike.

He’s a predator, he thinks to himself with a numb kind of fear that feels almost like - no.

Not pride.

That’s his line.

Oh, he’s good. The best in the regiment, at least, and maybe one of the best in the whole damn army. He refuses to take pride in that, though, the way some soldiers do - they reel off kill counts in the same childlike way Bucky used to boast about how many apples he could drop with his slingshot.

It’s not much of a line, but if it’s the only thing between him and the monster he’s terrified he’s becoming, he’ll take it.

He’s never been brave enough to ask what Steve thinks about his skill with a gun. It’s a question that haunts him, in the back of his mind, every time he pulls the trigger.

That’s one answer he can go to his grave without hearing.

Bucky’s still got more than a bit of anger stored up inside him for the people that created Captain America, but there’s one thing he knows they did right.

They gave him a shield, not a gun.

* * *

They pass through towns and even the odd city every so often, sometimes even crashing in one for a few days of downtime.

One night he, Steve, Monty and Jim are sat in a dingy, mostly-empty bar in a back street of some French town Bucky can’t pronounce the name of. It’s looking like it’ll be a quiet night, which is no bad thing. They’ve had six weeks of almost back-to-back missions. A bit of peace - or the illusion of it - is just what they need to start feeling semi-human again.

Dernier and Dugan are mostly likely off trying to get laid; Dugan’s too-frequent stories about his lady-friend back in the States don’t seem to have any effect on how often he makes the effort to get lucky with any dames they run into, and Dernier has the advantage of actually being able to speak to the women here.

The fact that Dugan can’t is probably its own kind of advantage, Bucky thinks to himself, if the pick-up-lines he’s heard the guy talk about are any indication.

Bucky’s pretty sure that Gabe won’t be on the hunt for anything like that; he’s probably sitting out under the stars, writing a romantic letter to his girl. Bucky hopes everyone survives this war, - with the exception of himself, at least on his bad days - but Gabe is one in particular that he’d like to know for certain will be able to go onto better things.

Monty ends up drunker than Bucky would like. He doesn’t know if all English guys act this damn queer when they’ve necked a few pints, but either way it makes him real twitchy. He’s pretty sure Steve’s feeling the same way, if his sidelong glances at Monty’s flappy little hand gestures are anything to go by.

There might have been some flimsy reason for Monty to bring up the topic of how bloody awful it is to have to masturbate quietly in the barracks, but Bucky’s about ninety-nine percent sure that Jim and Steve had been trying to have a conversation about how good it would be to get a decent meal out here when Monty had blatantly changed the subject, with no encouragement from anyone.

Bucky’s pretty sure that there are worse issues a soldier should be worrying about; but to be fair, when he’d first shipped out he’d had the same thought more than a time or two, so he goes along with the topic without too much reluctance.

Saves Steve from having to make a coherent reply, anyway.

“Come on, Sarge,” Monty says in a sly tone that’s not far enough away from flirtatious for Bucky’s liking. “We’ve all seen the way you handle your Johnson, eh?”

Jim groans loudly at the pun; Bucky chokes on his drink; and Steve flushes red in a way that wouldn’t look out of place if he was spread out on his back, legs wide and -

Where the bloody fucking hell did that come from?

His sex drive, already lower since he came over here, had faded into nonexistence after Azzano, and he hadn’t been able to bring himself to care. This was a hell of a time for it to make a reappearance.

“Fuck you, toff,” he says to Monty, ignoring the vision of Steve with difficulty.

He also ignores the fact that the fingers which have grown so adept at taking apart his gun - hell, they call it _stripping,_ maybe these army guys are even more repressed than he’d thought - used to be skilled at something very, very different.

He takes a long drink, and ends up draining his glass dry.

He pulls out a smoke instead, lighting it with hands that look steady but feel like they’re shaking. 

He still isn’t used to being able to smoke around Steve. It feels wrong, not wrong like the way he’s starting to feel less and less every time he takes a life, more like when he was younger and couldn’t think of anything too bad to confess to the priest in Reconciliation, so he’d just list off a whole lot of thoughts about how annoying Becca was sometimes and how he felt bad for wishing that Mrs Rogers wasn’t so poor.

Then he’d realised that he was in love with Steve, and confession had turned into a test of his abilities to lie.

His head’s all muddled, and he wonders if he’s finally getting drunk. He hasn’t been able to, not really, not since -

Well. Not since.

Now everything’s blurring together behind his eyes: his hands on his rifle, Steve’s back arching off the bed, Bucky’s fingers slippery with gun oil - no, wait -

Jesus.

Everyone’s laughing now, maybe at him, most likely at Steve’s still-red cheeks.

He wonders how long it’d take for him to heal if he stubbed the cigarette out in the palm of his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: Bucky's entire train of thought here is an angst-fest. It includes suicidal thoughts, lots of thoughts of death and war wounds, self-hatred, mention of self-harm, and generally his mindset is very mixed-up and may be confusing to follow. Also some sexual innuendo and mentions of homophobia, as per.
> 
> This chapter is deliberately disjointed, to reflect both the passing of time and Bucky's less-than coherent internal monologue. But I hope you can still follow it, if not feel free to let me know and I can tweak/add bits. His thoughts on shooting people in war aren't meant to represent soldiers in general, just him. I looked up some first-person accounts and they were unsurprisingly very contradictory because everyone deals with things differently, so I just went with what felt accurate for Bucky's post-Azzano outlook on life in this AU.
> 
> Thank you for reading! Feedback very appreciated as always. Sorry again about my inability to write the happy ending for this one. I will try to have the first sequel up about a week after the final chapter of this is posted.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're at the end (for now!). Thank you so much to everyone that has read along, especially if you were here when this was still a WIP. 
> 
> In the meantime, you might like my new, (unrelated to this, and it's finished, just needs a bit of editing) fic that I just started posting: ['We colour the world with our hope'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7867951/chapters/17968255) \- not so much Howling Commandos in that one, but more Bucky and Steve as kids/teenagers.
> 
> Again, thank you for reading this, the response is the reason it grew from 3 to 7 chapters. Sorry again I couldn't provide a properly happy ending, remember there is more to come! Warnings in end notes. Feedback is always very welcome.

* * *

This can’t be real life.

Jumping onto a moving train to catch some kind of crazy supervillain hellbent on taking over the world?

This isn’t what Bucky signed up for.

He didn’t sign up at all, not that he’s ever going to let Steve know that.

There’s only about six hours left of the night before they’re going to have to be up and ready to set off, and the rest of the Commandos are probably either fast asleep or pretending to be.

Bucky had put on his surliest expression - it comes naturally to him, these days - and walked out of the barracks into the forest surrounding them, pretending that he was settling in for a night of brooding on the horrors of war and what they’d turned him into.

In reality, he had doubled back and slipped through the back door - not without a quick joke to himself at the double meaning of those words - of the building that passed for officers quarters. Steve had reluctantly accepted the smallest, shittiest room in the place, though Bucky knows that he’d still rather be bunking down with the other Commandos.

He doesn’t risk doing this often. As welcome as it is to be able to touch Steve - there isn’t even a window in the little room, so once they’ve locked the door they’re about as safe as two men can be in a fucking army base - it’s not worth getting complacent about it.

They don’t fuck, this time. Neither of them make a move towards anything more than a few lazy kisses. It’s enough for them to be lying there together, Steve holding him. It’s enough.

“I hope everything goes okay tomorrow,” Steve says in a low voice. They’re always quiet when they’re together, even though Bucky’s sure the rest of the building is empty right now.

Their love has always been a quiet one; confessions exchanged in whispers; hands pressed over mouths; breaths passed from one body to the other in a stillness that went deeper than silence; a sick little jolt in their stomachs echoing every creak of the floorboards or footstep outside their door.

Quiet from necessity, of course.

Bucky wonders what they would have been like in another universe, one where they could have loved at their liberty, open and honest, and spoken their every promise aloud instead of keeping them locked up inside.

They would have lived so proudly, he thinks. Lived free and loved true, and what more can anyone ask for?

“Can you please talk about something other than this fucking war for a second?” Bucky says, trying to distract himself from his own mind.

Not the easiest of tasks. 

Steve sighs. “You should probably head back,” he says, and his arms tighten slightly around Bucky, contradicting his words in the most obvious way possible.

“I’m good here. No-one’s going to look for me.”

“You don’t know that.”

Bucky rolls his eyes, even though Steve can’t see his face. Hell, they know each so well by this point, Steve can probably tell what’s he’s doing anyway. “Yeah, I do. They all think I’m screwed in the head. Me going off to sit under some tree and think about how fucked up I am isn’t going to set off any warning bells.”

Steve falls silent, but he draws Bucky even closer, which is answer enough.

“We can rest for a while, after tomorrow,” Steve says in a soft voice that sounds much too close to exhausted for Bucky's liking.

“Mhm. We could rest right fucking now, if you’d shut your mouth,” Bucky answers him, squeezing the nearest part of Steve he can reach - his hip, it turns out - to make sure he knows that he isn’t mad, not really. Just tired, and a little sad, and anxious about what the morning will bring.

“Love you,” is Steve’s next whisper, and it catches Bucky off-guard for some reason. 

By the time he’s gathered his fragmented mind back together enough that he’s in a fit state to reply, Steve is already asleep.

“I love you too,” he says, and he hates how even though they were barely louder than an exhale of air would have been, the words sound terrifyingly loud in the stillness.

Then a short, two-rap knock comes at the door, and Bucky realises that until that second he hadn’t ever known the meaning of loudness.

He freezes, at first, which is a fucking useless reaction to have, Christ, he’s supposed to be a battle-hardened soldier.

“Cap?”

Bucky can’t even begin to guess who’s there, not from just that one word.

“I had a couple questions about the mission tomorrow,” the voice continues, and, oh, shit. Gabe. “I saw your light on under the door. Can I come in?”

Bucky’s never felt fear like the fear he feels now, when he realises he can’t remember if he locked the door. 

He gets up, careful as he can, wondering how the hell Steve is managing to sleep through this when it feels like just the rushing of blood in Bucky’s ears should be enough to wake the army.

He doesn’t think his feet make any noise as he crosses to the door. His boots were the only thing he’d taken off, and he’s regretting even that small concession to comfort right now.

“Cap?”

Is that - the handle’s turning, just a little.

Oh, God.

Bucky moves automatically, springing into action in the same mindset he falls into when he’s sighting a target through the scope of his rifle; he grabs his boots, opens the door - unlocked, Christ, how could he have been so _stupid_ \- doesn’t look at Gabe’s face, just takes his arm roughly and shoves him into the storage room that’s across from Steve’s quarters.

He checks that Steve’s door is shut, then follows Gabe into the other room, deliberately placing himself between Gabe and the only exit.

He puts his boots down on the floor.

And finally allows himself to look up.

He feels just the same way he does after a battle; his thoughts seem both too sharp and too distant, as though they would overwhelm him if he could just manage to pin them down.

Gabe’s worked it out. That much is obvious from his expression. God, if Bucky had just been smarter - they could have played it a different way; hell, Gabe had been coming to ask Steve something about the mission tomorrow, Bucky could have said he was doing the same thing.

Fuck.

And now it’s too late.

“I won’t tell anyone,” Gabe says into the loaded silence, and Bucky’s heartbeat starts to feel just a tiny bit less like a speeding train. “But - I can’t pretend I’m alright with it. I’m not going to lie to your face.”

Oh.

He notices that Gabe isn’t looking him in the eye.

He swallows down the instinctive denial that tries to rise up in his throat. It won't do any good, not now.

“It’s wrong,” Gabe continues, sounding every bit as implacable as Steve does when he’s up on his moral fucking high horse. Why does Bucky manage to surround himself with people who think they know exactly what right and wrong are, and who’d think nothing of going down fighting for some arbitrary concept of _goodness_ that’s probably never existed anywhere in the world?

This - this shouldn’t feel so painful. He’s prepared for this moment his whole life, he’s pretty sure; since even before he met Steve, as hazy and long-ago as those days feel to him now.

Since the day he heard the neighbours whispering about an invert over in Bushwick who’d _got what was coming to him, wouldn’t ever walk again, should have kicked his head in too._

Since the moment he’d first registered his father’s casual insults to men who looked a bit girly, _fucking fags,_ never said in a vicious, violent tone, just thrown out as a matter of course.

Since - there were hundreds of moments, and words, and beatings, and Bucky felt them all spinning inside his head, a maelstrom of the bewilderment and hurt he’d felt even as a child, swirling together with the bitterness and fear he’d resigned himself to when he and Steve had first confessed to one another, mixing in a rushing stream that starts drowning out every rational thought trying to swim against the current -

It’s nothing new.

This shouldn’t hurt. _You shouldn’t be fucking hurting,_ he tells himself in a stubborn voice that gets washed away in seconds by the tide inside his head.

But - he likes Gabe, and up till now he’d been pretty sure the feeling was mutual.

He can’t lie to himself right now; his thoughts feel flayed open, like he’s baring his soul for the world to see and mock. Knowing that their friendship had been conditional, that Gabe had only liked him so long as Bucky was conforming to his ideas of being a _man,_ or whatever bullshit explanation there was, it -

It fucking _hurts,_ that’s all there is to it.

 _Why is this so fucking different from you being coloured?_ Bucky wants to ask. Of all the men stuck in this hellhole, can’t you understand what it’s like to have folks despise you for something you can’t help?

He doesn’t say anything. If there’s one thing he’s learned the hard way, it’s that people who hate you aren’t going to change their tune just because you point out a neat bit of logic they’ve missed or ignored.

Gabe lets out a long sigh after a few more moments of silence pass without Bucky saying anything in reply. “Does anyone else know?”

Bucky shakes his head numbly. It’s a lie, but not one he’s going to feel bad about. He’s second-guessing Peggy and Jim’s reactions, now - had they really been okay with it? Maybe they’d just been trying to keep him and Steve calm; they were useful for the war effort after all - maybe everyone around them knows, secretly, and is looking at them with that concealed disgust in their eyes that Bucky’s lived in unconscious fear of for years.

“It’s not like we’re hurting anyone,” Bucky says in a small, tired voice. 

He doesn’t know why he’s bothering to argue.

“You are, though,” Gabe insists, seemingly unaware that his every word feels like a hammer blow, driving sharp nails deeper and deeper into Bucky’s brain. “Or you will be. Either you’ll hurt Rogers when the war’s over and you leave him, or you’re hurting your Stephanie now by lying to her.”

That - wait. What?

“Gabe,” he says, pulse jumping wildly with his new hope, unable to trust his own ears or mind anymore, but desperately clinging to the lifeline he thinks might just have been thrown to him. “Are you - are you mad at us because we’re queer, or because you think I’m cheating on my girl?”

Gabe’s eyes widen, and he looks almost afraid for a moment.

“Barnes, you absolute _moron,_ ” he says, and then before Bucky knows what’s happening Gabe’s arms are wrapped around him, drawing him in, and this should be weird, probably, the Commandos are pretty touchy-feely but they don’t start hugging each other for no reason, but - oh, he doesn’t give a fuck right now; Gabe doesn’t hate him, and Steve is safe, and Bucky holds on, holds tight and lets the waves of panic and fear recede back into the corners they call home, leaving his mind clean, and calm, and closer to peace than he’d thought would ever be possible again.

“I’m so sorry, Bucky,” Gabe says after a while. “I should have thought about how I would sound to you. I just - you love your Stevie so much, and I know they say people do things in war that they regret, but I -”

“Jones, fuck’s sake, hush up will you?” 

Bucky draws back, still not knowing if he wants to laugh or cry.

“C’mon, take a seat,” he continues, gesturing at one of the storage crates. “I’ve got a story to tell you.”

It’s fitting, really, that Gabe will be the first person to hear the whole sorry tale, start to finish. It was partly his question, back in Azzano, that had started this whole mess; that and Bucky’s inability to stop himself talking about Steve.

 _”What’s her name?”_ Gabe had asked, brave and curious, and Bucky remembered the odd kind of twisted relief that had sung through him as he’d let that one, life-changing word fall from his lips.

_Stevie._

It had been true, what he’d said to Steve. He hadn’t thought he would make it out of there alive; hadn’t been sure he wanted to.

But he did; they both did. 

He’s glad again, fiercely so, that Gabe will be with him and Steve tomorrow, on the train.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: lots of homophobia (including someone thinking their friend is homophobic and including mention of homophobic violence), lots of internalised angst and self-hate, swearing as always, some racism. And NOT a happy ending, though that will be coming. 
> 
> Aw, I'm sad to be finishing this up. I have loved writing it and am having a lot of fun (and emotions) planning the sequels. 
> 
> [Here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7867951/chapters/17968255) is my other fic I mentioned at the beginning, if you want to see if you like it. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading <3
> 
> Note October 2017: If anyone still wants sequels, my life was kind of a disaster this year and the drafts are still sitting in a WIPS folder, sorry. Feel free to subcribe to the series still and fingers crossed you'll get a surprise sequel in a few months, but no guarantees. Thanks for reading, this is my most popular fic and the support means a lot!

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is very welcome!


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